The top honcho of the London-based behavioral research company at the center of a Facebook data harvesting controversy linked to the 2016 United States presidential race dined with two cousins who played key roles in President Rodrigo Duterte’s campaign.

The South China Morning Post on Monday (April 9) reported about the dinner of Cambridge Analytica Chief Executive Officer Alexander Nix with Jose Gabriel “Pompee” La Viña and Peter Tiu Laviña after giving a talk about new ways of managing elections in 2015.

SCMP’s article was accompanied by a photo of the dinner the Tius had with Nix, National Press Club president Joel Sy Egco— now a Communications undersecretary— and abogado Taipan Millan, a friend of Duterte.

The Hong Kong-based media outlet said the photo was snapped by Peter, who became Duterte’s campaign spokesperson.

His cousin, Pompee, took charge of Duterte’s social media strategy.

Nix gave a talk to the NPC in May 2015 where he talked about the major role that micro-targeting, psychographic profiling and predictive analytics will play in the elections.

He introduced himself as a senior executive of Strategic Communications Laboratories, Cambridge Analytica’s parent company.

“Election campaigning will never be the same again due to the advent of cutting-edge technology,” Nix was quoted as saying by Egco, who wrote about the talk as a reporter for the Manila Times.

Cambridge Analytica has suspended Nix as its Chief Executive Officer as the scandal over the firm’s use of Facebook data for Trump’s election campaign continues to grow.

The comments posted on this site do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of management and owner of POLITICS.com.ph. We reserve the right to exclude comments that we deem to be inconsistent with our editorial standards.